Likelihood of Reciprocation

LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®’s “blogroll” policy has not really changed, even though LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® is bigger and better than ever, but it may be useful to clarify it, because I do get inquiries, and there have been some refinements. Namely, ones that I just made up. And this blog is now “big” enough in our micro-sub-niche that it is reasonable to assume that some people might care to know what the rules are considering that, indeed, they ask us about linking.

The basic rule is one of reciprocation: Any bona fide blog that puts LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® on its blogroll will be put on the blogroll here. You don’t have to be an IP blog, or even be very good. Non-bona-fide, of course, means pure spam blogs, commercial websites without real editorial content and those annoying link farms, whatever the heck they’re really called in webby lingo.

There are exceptions to the bona-fide-reciprocation rule. If your blog uses a lot of four-letter words or other over-the-top NSFW content, I won’t link to you, no matter how brilliant you are. Also if your blog is clean as a whistle, but you’re a Nazi, or a particularly bad kind of Commie, no linkee. Hence your blog could come and go on the blogroll depending on how you’re behaving lately.

I pretty much don’t respond to inquiries, whether from blog authors or their consultants or other hirelings, about “link exchanges,” in the blogroll or otherwise. If your blog is real and you link to LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® in your blogroll,* I will link to you in mine. That doesn’t mean you can’t give me a head’s up that you’ve done so, however.

On the other hand, if I add you but you show your utter lack of gratitude for the torrent of traffic that comes your way by going more than a month… or two… without adding content… goom-bye. The blogroll is for live websites. Luckily this is a forgiving policy because I don’t do as much maintenance as I ought to (or as certain people have promised they would help me do) and even then, if you reappear on the link radar screen, I welcome you back to your alphabetical space in the blogroll like the most prodigal of sons.

Similarly, if you change your URL and the old one does not re-direct, obviously it’s up to you to let me know by sending an email to the-name-of-this-blog @ GMail. I know you care, after all, because you’ve read this far. Sometimes, after all, people get to your blog via my blog. Kind of thing.

This is not a contract, for Heaven’s sake! This is my blog. It is mine. It is beautiful, and it is mine. I don’t have to link anybody and nobody has to link me. It’s all at my discretion. Mine, mine, mine! These are the rules I apply. In my discretion. Total, unfettered, arbitrary and capricious discretion. No contract, no reliance, no jurisdiction, no NOTHING. Talk to the hand.

There is, of course, no seventh thing.

* Is it a “blogroll” if it’s not on the home page? I am still thinking about that. Let’s see if the one I just linked to results in any traffic this way. That’s a scientific way to decide, isn’t it?

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The Title, the Blog and the Blogger

The question of whether consumers are likely to be confused is the signal inquiry that determines if a trademark infringement claim is valid. I write here about trademark law, copyright law, brands, free speech (mostly as it relates to the Internet) and legal issues related to blogging. That may sound like a lot, but it's just a blog.

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